Council honors Marty Wagner with Distinguished Service Award

The International Council for Technology in Government Administration recently presented G. Martin Wagner with its Distinguished Service Award.

The award to Wagner, a long-time official at the General Services Administration, was presented at the council’s annual gala dinner held Nov. 11 at the elegant National Museum of Women in the Arts.

“With officials representing 23 nations and the World Bank in attendance, Frank Leyman, senior official in Belgium and in the European Union and Chair of the 44-year-old International Council for Technology in Government Administration as well as [GSA Administrator], Martha Johnson and myself spoke fondly about Marty,” wrote former GSA official Frank McDonough in an e-mail about the event.

Before retiring from government in January 2007, Wagner spent 31 years in public service, including his last 16 at GSA, where he served in a number of high-level positions, including associate administrator for GSA’s Office of Governmentwide Policy and deputy commissioner for the Federal Acquisition Service. Wagner was instrumental in the agency’s plan to create FAS by merging GSA’s two procurement offices, the Federal Supply Service and the Federal Technology Service.

“For most of the last 22 years, Marty, as our boss, supported me, Martha Dorris and, more recently, Darlene Meskell in our many activities in the International Council for Technology in Government Administration, and when he could, as was possible nine times, Marty headed the U.S. delegation in various cities in the world,” McDonough wrote.

“There are many stories about Marty Wagner and the International Council for Technology in Government Administration, and I told a few, but I emphasized that Marty supported ICA for a long time and he loved to attend the annual conferences and just socialize when it was time to socialize and talk government business when it was time to be business-like and share with other countries about what works and does not work in the emerging government of the future.”

After leaving GSA, Wagner joined the IBM Center for the Business of Government. However, in 2008 he suffered a life-threatening injury in an accident at his home and had to retire.

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